Modern iPhones are incredibly reliable, but they are still computers. Sometimes an app freezes completely, the touch screen stops responding to your fingers, or the phone gets stuck on a black screen. When this happens, you cannot use the normal method to restart your phone because the screen slider will not work.
You need to perform a “Hard Reset” (officially called a Force Restart by Apple). This forces the hardware to cut power to the motherboard and reboot the operating system.
Here is how to properly hard reset an iPhone 15, iPhone 16, or any modern iPhone with Face ID.
What to Know Before You Start
Before executing the steps, it is important to understand the terminology to avoid a catastrophic mistake:
- Hard Reset (Force Restart): This process WILL NOT delete any of your photos, apps, or personal data. It is perfectly safe and simply forces the phone to reboot.
- Factory Reset: This is a completely different process found deep in the Settings menu (Erase All Content and Settings). A factory reset permanently deletes everything on your phone. We are not doing a factory reset today.
How to Hard Reset Your iPhone
To successfully force restart the phone, you must press three buttons in a very specific sequence. The first two button presses must be done quickly, one right after the other.
- Press and quickly release the Volume Up button on the left side of the phone.
- Immediately press and quickly release the Volume Down button on the left side of the phone.
- Immediately press and HOLD the large Side Button (the power button) on the right side of the phone.
Keep Holding That Button!
Step 3 is where most people fail. You must keep holding the Side Button for a surprisingly long time—usually 10 to 15 seconds.
- If the “slide to power off” screen appears, ignore it. Keep holding the button.
- If the screen goes completely black, ignore it. Keep holding the button.
Only release the Side Button when the silver Apple logo appears on the screen.
Once you see the Apple logo, the hard reset was successful. Your phone will take a few seconds to boot up, and it will require you to type your passcode (Face ID will be temporarily disabled until you log in manually).
What if the iPhone still won’t turn on?
If you followed the steps exactly and the screen remains completely black, the battery might be completely dead. A phone with a catastrophically low battery will not even display the “low battery” charging icon.
Plug the iPhone into a high-quality wall charger (do not use a computer USB port) and leave it alone for at least 30 minutes. After it has charged, attempt the button sequence again.